At 9:00 am on Tuesday July 23rd at Lafayette Middle School, State Superintendent of Education, John White, begins a series of public meetings about ESSA – the Every Student Succeeds Act. The public, including parents, teachers and community members are required to be involved to help build the state’s ESSA compliance plan. This provides the public the opportunity to change the state accountability system, one that is currently almost exclusively driven by standardized test scores.

ESSA, which replaces No Child Left Behind, marks a turning point. There are things that we can do now that we couldn’t do before.

We can choose multiple indicators -not just state testing- to demonstrate school quality and student success.

We can choose a better way to identify the strength of our schools. A single letter grade – A to F – doesn’t communicate what parents and educators need to know.

We can change our response to schools that struggle by involving parents, teachers and the community in determining interventions.

We can protect parental choice for children to opt out of state tests without punitive measures for children or schools.

We can eliminate the evaluation of teachers based on students’ scores on state tests.

Imagine schools that are measured by access to school support personnel, access to fine arts and foreign language programs, years of experience and expertise of the faculty, bullying prevention methods and positive behavior programs, parent and community involvement, and appropriate assessment programs. All of these opportunities to demonstrate student success and school quality are currently being ignored in Louisiana’s accountability system. ESSA gives us a path to demand that these measures be the standard by which our schools are judged. We can achieve this.

For more information about ESSA and how you can promote change, please click here for A PPEL Guide to ESSA. Print out the guide and share it with friends.

Superintendent White needs to hear from you. Please attend one of these regional meetings:

Tuesday, August 2- 1:00, Woodson/KIPP Central City Academy, 2514 Third St., New Orleans

Each one of the nine meetings begins at either 9:00am, 10:00am or 2:00pm – all times when many busy parents are at work. Superintendent White has said he would be happy to attend other meetings when he is invited. He should be invited back by communities and organizations for day and evening presentations, so more people can provide input. Don’t miss attending – or requesting – a meeting! It is a rare opportunity for the general public to create policy changes at the Louisiana Department of Education that will directly benefit our children.

As corporate-supported K-12 education reformers promote school choice, the concept of ‘single applications’ for all schools within a city or district – traditional, charter, for-profit, voucher, on-line, etc. – is also being promoted. The New Orleans ‘One App’ single application system is looked upon as a model, despite significant parent criticism. Boston, MA, and Oakland, CA, are planning to create single-enrollment systems for all traditional public schools and charter schools. These districts might heed warnings

Research on learning with paper texts versus computers shows unique strengths for paper. Comparisons of PARCC scores echo those findings. Scores of students taking PARCC tests on paper were consistently higher than for matched groups of students taking the tests on computers. READ about PARCC score comparisons here: PARCC Scores Lower on Computer Exam. READ about research on reading here: The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens. Are school systems

PPEL heard from Representatives and presented a legislative agenda at our first annual Legislative Breakfast in March. Priority issues included privatization, teacher retention, and accountability systems. Over two-dozen bills of interest were identified. Of those, only a few were moved out of the House Education Committee and further into the legislative process. During the session, local governance became an additional legislative priority.

Representative Vincent Pierre receives an “A” and Rep. Terry Landry receives a “B” for upholding legislative priorities that support students, teachers, and local school districts.

Representatives Taylor Barras, Stuart Bishop, Nancy Landry and Joel Robideaux receive a “F” for abandoning legislative priorities that support students, teachers, and local school districts and instead supporting corporate models, punitive assessments and decreased local control.

——————————————————————————————————————–

Many lesson were learned from PPEL’s first engagement with the legislative session. Effective activism is challenging and the playing field is not level. Opponents of PPEL’s legislative priorities are well-funded and organized – but parents, educators and citizens put up a good fight and will use the lessons learned to become more effective.

Nothing can change without local activists willing to make a real commitment to policies that support students, teachers and local control of public schools.

Thank you to all who made a phone call, sent an email, or had a meeting with a legislator. We hope you were inspired to continue to speak out and express your opinion as a citizen. Ultimately, the citizen’s opinion about the legislators we elect is the opinion that matters.

It is often said that legislatures are bought and paid for. It’s hard for grassroots groups and citizens to be heard over the rumble of the lobbying groups with dollars. It’s not often you find written evidence of who exactly holds the power. While researching the impact of for-profit charter school chains applying to open charter schools in Lafayette Parish in 2013, the Lafayette Parish parent activist group Swamp BESE located a document called the

Things move fast at the Capitol during the legislative session. HB 703 was set for a floor vote today — and now it’s up in the air – probably to settle back down for a rescheduled floor vote on Wednesday April 30th.

This is a must-win bill. It’s going to be close. Representative John Bel Edwards’ HB 703 barely passed out of the House Education Committee by a vote of eight to seven. It must make it through step two: a vote of the full House.

Promoters of national for-profit charter school chains see as essential the state-level override authority to push budget-breaking charter schools onto A, B and C school districts. High-performing districts know the score and do not want these schools. They do not want BESE to have the authority to override taxpayer consent.

We must work for every single vote on this bill. Each vote of the Acadiana delegation and the New Orleans democrats is a must have. Please use www.legis.com to locate the Representatives by parish. Call early! Call often! Email, snail-mail, and fax. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

You can be assured that the for-profit charter school lobby and the business lobby will be out in force to oppose this bill. CABL, LABI, and the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools tout their 100% record of defeating any real reform that threatens the roll-out of the corporate business model of education. They will fight to preserve that record and to ensure the unchecked spread of the for-profit corporate charter school chains.

Those who value an integrated, effective, and equitable public school system that welcomes all students – regardless of parental support, economic condition, disability, or English-language status, need to fight as hard as those who want to divide our public system into ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. The lobbyists are well-paid. But we have cell phones and heart.

Talking points:

Stop BESE from redirecting local tax dollars without the consent of voters

HB 703 does not stop, close, or harm existing or authorized charters schools, or stop new schools from going to willing districts.

HB 703 impacts only Type 1 applications to A, B, or C districts that reject the applicants because the charter model does not fit into the district plan for success.

HB 703 rewards high-performing districts and protects their ability to retain and improve their high rating.

If a district slips to a C, D or F rating, BESE can authorize Type 2 charters directly into the parish, since C, D, and F is defined as failing. This supports the original intent of the charter school movement: to deliver innovation for at-risk students in failing schools.

State law requires that local school boards determine the number and location of schoolhouses. HB 703 guarantees this legal provision for A, B and C districts.

We can’t take HB 703’s success on the House floor for granted. The time is now, and together we can win that vote!

Are the Common Core State Standards and accompanying PARCC tests the vanguard for the corporate takeover of public education? Joshua Bleiberg in “Four reasons that critics of Common Core should reconsider their opposition” confirms connections exist between multiple aspects of today’s failed corporate education reforms and support for Common Core. The following are four reasons to reject Bleiberg’s argument and to consider opposing Common Core and PARCC testing.

1) Big data is coming. “Standards will improve how big data works” is suggested by Bleiberg as a reason to support Common Core. Parents don’t want big data to work on or anywhere near their children. Promoting ‘”big data” as a Common Core feature not a bug, shows a stunning lack of awareness or respect for parents’ concerns. Bleiberg writes, “National standards also make it easier to link databases from separate states and districts together, which enables larger data sets.” Large data sets are not necessarily better-used or more valid data sets. States are awash in data today, to little good effect. Accountability and evaluation systems based on a single high-stakes test such as PARCC are invalid indicators of student learning or teacher effectiveness.

2) Market efficiencies enrich corporations. Bleiberg states “Standards also lower the barriers for new companies to develop programs.” In practice the exact opposite is unfolding. CCSS is consolidating curriculum and testing materials. Vast profits will be made by the Common Core curriculum dealers and PARCC testing companies who got in on the ground floor. Benefits to “new companies”? Doubtful.

3) Market efficiencies grow for-profit charter schools. Bleiberg writes “Developers can create a single tool for a national market rather then many tools for every set of standards.” Bleiberg obliquely acknowledges that states have existing standards – but 50 sets of state standards do not provide adequate business opportunities to corporate profit-seekers. CCSS allows charter schools to experience huge efficiencies, allowing them to purchase just one curricula for their multi-state business enterprises, enhancing their business model, which is simply making profits from taxpayer money – money that should got to educating children.

4) New ‘governance’ gets rid of school boards and direct accountability. Bleiberg uses a new buzzword promoted by Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix and Rocketship charter schools: governance. The word ‘governance’ is used by the corporate reformers to promote the removal of local elected school boards. Local governments know their constituents’ needs and are nimble enough to act. Corporatizers prefer appointed boards and unaccountable not-for-profit charter school boards. Hastings has set a national goal of 90% of students enrolled in charter schools by 2030. Elected school boards are seen as a hindrance to the speedy implementation of corporate takeover.

Elected local school boards listen to parents, educators and citizens who are becoming increasingly alarmed by the convergence of corporate interests to ‘create efficiencies’ to capture profit from public education. High education standards are essential to equitable and effective education, but must it be Common Core standards? Bleiberg’s article serves as a warning that the alarm bells ringing over CCSS and PARCC are justified on all fronts: big data, corporate enrichment, for-profit charter schools and governance.

Mercedes Schneider has the story about how legislation promoting charter schools and boosted by ALEC is coming to your statehouse. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) (established 1973) offers corporate America the opportunity to shape legislation that serves its profit-garnering interests and to do so in statehouses around the country. To accomplish this controlling of the legislative process, ALEC provides forums (conferences that double as posh vacations for legislators and their families) in which both

LAFAYETTE — Two Lafayette Parish public-school parents, who fought last year against for-profit charter operators opening schools here, have organized a new watchdog group called Power of Public Education Lafayette. Parents Kathleen Espinoza and Ann Burruss organized the watchdog group Swamp BESE last year in protest of two charter groups’ applications to the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to open charter schools in Lafayette Parish. After the Lafayette Parish School Board rejected the applications, the groups

About PPEL

We are parents, educators, and citizens who have come together around a common commitment to public education in Lafayette Parish. Our schools belong to us: the students who learn in them, the parents who support them, the educators and staff who work in them, and the communities that they anchor.
Learn More